Mobile communications have changed the way people communicate and mobile phones have been transformed from a luxury item to an essential part of every day life. The use of mobile phones is today dictated by social situations, rather than hampered by location or technology. While voice connections fulfill the basic need to communicate, and mobile voice connections continue to filter even further into the fabric of every day life, the mobile Internet is the next, step in the mobile communication revolution. The mobile Internet is poised to become a common source of everyday information, and easy, versatile mobile access to this data will be taken for granted.
Third generation (3G) and fourth generation (4G) cellular networks are specifically designed to fulfill these future demands of the mobile Internet. As these services grow in popularity and usage, factors such as cost efficient optimization of network capacity and quality of service (QoS) will become even more essential to cellular operators than it is today. These factors may be achieved with careful network planning and operation, improvements in transmission methods, and advances in receiver techniques. To this end, carriers need technologies that will allow them to increase throughput and, in turn, offer advanced QoS capabilities and speeds that rival those delivered by cable modem and/or DSL service providers. Recently, advances in multiple antenna technology and other physical layer technologies have started to significantly increase available communications data rates.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.